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On this page: Litra – Lituus

LITRA.

gave rise to the phrase Litis Contestatio ; but this does not inform us what the Litis Contestatio properly was. Still as the name of a thing is de­rived from that which constitutes its essence, it may be that the name here expresses the thing, that is, that the Litis Contestatio was so called, for the reason which Festus gives, and that it also consisted in the litigant parties calling on the witnesses to bear record. But as it is usual for the whole of a thing to take its name from some special part, so it may be that the Litis Contestatio, in the time of the Legis Actiones, was equivalent to the whole proceedings in Jure, and that the whole was so called from that part which completed it.

The time when the proper Litis Contestatio fell into disuse cannot be determined, though it would seem that this must have taken place with the passing of the Aebutia Lex and the two Leges Juliae which did away with the Legis Actiones, except in certain cases. It is also uncertain if the proper Litis Contestatio still existed in those Legis Actiones, wThich were- not interfered with by the Leges above mentioned ; and if so, whether it ex­isted in the old form or in a modified shape.

This view of the matter is by Keller, in his treatise i4 Ueber Litis Contestation und Urtheil nach Classischen Romischen Recht," Zurich, 1827. Other opinions are noticed in his work. The author labours particularly to show that the ex­pression Litis Contestatio ahva}rs refers to the pro­ceedings In Jure and never to those In Judicio.

Savigny (System, &c. vi. § 256—279) has also fully examined the Litis Contestatio. Pie shows that in the Extraordinaria Judicia [judicium] which existed at the same time with the process of the formula, and in which theie was neither Judex nor formula, and in which the whole legal dispute was conducted before a magistratus, the Litis Con­testatio means the time when the parties had fully declared their several claims and answers to such claims before' the magistratus. This was substan-tiallv the same as the Litis Contestatio, and the

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difference lay simply in the external form. (Comp. Cod. 3. tit. 9. s. 1, Rescript of Severus and Anto­ ninus.) At a later period, when all actions had become changed into extraordinaria judicia, that which was before the exception now became the rule, and Lis Contestata in the system of Jus­ tinian consisted in the statements made by the parties to a suit before the magistrate respecting the claim or demand, and the answer or defence to it. When this was done, the cause was ready for hearing. [G. L.J

LITRA (An-pa), a word which was used by the Greeks of Sicily in their system of weights and money, and which occurs as early as in the fragments of Simonides and Epicharmus, is evi­dently another form of the Italian word libra, as we are told by Festus (s.v.Lnes, "Atrpa enim libra est"). It was the unit of an uncial system similar to that used in the Roman and Italian weights and money [As ; libra], its twelfth part being called byxia (the Roman undo), and six, five, four, three, and two of these twelfth parts being denominated respectively ^/-uAirpoz', Trei/roy-;aov, rer/aas, rpias, and e£as. As a coin, the Atrpa was equal in value to the Aeginetan obol; and hence the origin of the word may be explained, by sup­posing that the Greeks of Sicily, having brought with them the Aeginetan obol, afterwards assimi­lated their system of coinage to that used "by their

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LITUUS.

Italian neighbours, making their obol to answer to the libra,, under the name of Airpa. In the same way a Corinthian stater of ten obols was called in Syracuse a SeKuXirpov, or piece of ten litras. (Aristot ap. Pollux, iv. 24, 173, ix. 6, 80 ; Muller, Dor. iii. 10. § 12.) See nummus and pondera.

The cotyho, nstd for measuring oil, which is mentioned by Galen [cotyla], is also called by him AiVpa. Here the word is only a Greek form of libra. [See libra, sub fin.~\ [P. S.]

LITUUS. Muller (Die Etruslcer, iv. 1. 5) supposes this to be an Etruscan word signifying crooked. In the Latin writers it is used to denote

1. The crooked staff borne by the augurs, with which they divided the expanse of heaven when viewed with reference to divination (templum), into regions (regiones) ; the number of these ac­cording to the Etruscan discipline, being sixteen, according to the Roman practice, four. (Muller, iii. 6. 1 ; Cic. de Div. ii. 18.) Cicero (de Div. i. 7) de­scribes the lituus as t(> incurvum et leviter a summo inflexum bacillum ;" and Livy (i. 18) as " bacu-lum sine nndo aduncum." It is very frequently ex­hibited upon works of art. The figure in the middle of the following illustrations is from a most ancient specimen of Etruscan sculpture in the pos­session of Inghirami (Monumenti Etruschi, torn. vi. tav. P'. 5. 1), representing an augur j the two others are Roman denarii.

2. A sort of trumpet slightly curved at the ex­ tremity. (Festus, s. v.; Gell. v, 8.) It differed both from the tuba and the cornu (Hor. Carm. ii. 1. 17 ; Lucan, i. 237), the former being straight while the latter was bent round into a spiral shape. Lydus (de Mens. iv. 50) calls the lituus the sacerdotal trumpet (tepcm/cV ad^Tnyya), and says that it was em­ ployed by Romulus when he proclaimed the title of his city. Aero (ad HoraL Carm. i. 1. 23) as­ serts that i-t was peculiar to cavalry, while the tuba belonged to infantry. Its tones are usually characterised as harsh and shrill (stridor lituum, Lucan, i. 237 ; sonitus acutos, Ennius, apud Fest. s. v. ; Stat. Theb. vi. 228, &c..). See Muller, Die Etrusker, iv. 1. 5. The following representation is from Fabretti. . [W. R.]